Seven days: 6 October 2017

The tax affairs of US tech darlings Amazon (US: AMZN) and Apple (AAPL) have come back under the spotlight thanks to the European Commission (EC). Brussels has ordered Amazon to pay €250m in back taxes after finding it had been given illegal tax benefits in Luxembourg, which allowed it to pay less tax in other jurisdictions. The EC is also planning to take Ireland to the European Court of Justice over its failure to recover up to €13bn in back taxes from Apple in 2016. At the time the EC found that Ireland had given the iPhone manufacturer illegal state aid.